


Inch by Inch

by VenetiaHall



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dancing, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Karaoke, Multi, One Shot, Post-Lethal White, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 17:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18056672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenetiaHall/pseuds/VenetiaHall
Summary: Robin finds out surprising things about Cormoran and his friends as they all go out for karaoke one night Dave Polworth was in town. First kisses! Slow dances! Shanker and Spanner hogging the karaoke!Plus, they finally solve the mystery of who exactly shagged Gwenifer Arscott.





	Inch by Inch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lemon_verbena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_verbena/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [lemon_verbena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_verbena/pseuds/lemon_verbena) in the [StrikeFicExchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StrikeFicExchange) collection. 



> Prompt: **The friends go out for a night on the town, plenty of drinks and good times. Karaoke, perhaps?**
> 
> Short and sweet. ;)

“I can’t believe they’re still at it." said Ilsa, shaking her head as she laughed.

Spanner was screeching Green Day’s _21 Guns_ , while Shanker waved about a lit lighter, both clearly very drunk. It was nearing midnight and they were the only people left at this karaoke bar, apart from the barkeep.

“First kiss!” Nick suggested, to everyone’s (save for Robin's) audible groans.

“What?” Robin asked, lost.

This was a frequent game of theirs, asking each other random personal questions and going around the group for an answer. To abstain from answering meant drinking an entire pint in one gulp. So far that night, only Cormoran was being a spoil-sport, and his friends were starting to get put out by his refusal to share and his ability to drink them all under the table.

“He thinks his first kiss was Jennifer Aniston.” said Cormoran.

“Really?” Robin said, stunned.

“No, not really!” exclaimed Ilsa.

“No need to be jealous, love.” Nick joked and Ilsa rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to them Robin. I was the only one here who was there, and she was definitely Jennifer Aniston.”

“Wow!” said Robin excitedly, wriggling forward in the cramped booth, squeezing between Cormoran’s vast arm and the hard wall. “How’d you know for sure?”

“Mum’s got pictures! She looked quite different then though, she had a bit of a nose job when she went all Hollywood, but we had met on a cruise and hit it off. And she talked about me on Graham Norton.”

Robin gasped. Cormoran chuckled at the look on her face.

“She didn’t mention a name, idiot!” Spanner yelled from the other side of the bar during a musical interlude to his song.

“Of course she wouldn’t. She’s got to protect her old friend’s privacy, doesn’t she?” said Nick. “But you can search for it, Rob. On Youtube. She talks about being twelve and being on a cruise hitting it off with a cute British lad.” he said, pointing two thumbs at himself.

“Don’t get too excited,” Cormoran quipped. “We’ve seen the photos. It isn’t her.”

“It is too her!” Nick insisted.

“In my professional opinion—“ Cormoran comically affected a matter-of-fact-tone. “I have professionally deduced that you definitely have never kissed the professional actress, Jennifer Aniston.”

The table erupted in laughter. Cormoran felt Robin’s shoulder shake next to him.

“What about the rest of you?” asked Robin.

“French girl, Meghan Arnoult.” said Dave. “She’s no Jennifer Aniston,” he continued, tipping his beer to Nick. “but she taught me how to kiss like her people. Added her on Facebook just recenty, in fact.”

“Why?” Ilsa asked, puzzled.

Dave shrugged. “Did not add me back, though.” he continued, to everyone’s laughter. “And you, Rob?”

“I was twelve,” Robin started, tipping her beer to Nick, too. “Lydia Markham. Slumber party. Incidentally, also half-French and taught me how.”

Cormoran shifted his body to look at Robin just then, who gave him a shrewd smile. “You don’t say,” he said, unable to stop himself. Cormoran fully expected Robin to say that it had been Matthew, and that it was at the end of a perfectly conventional date. He felt inordinately happy for her that this memory wasn’t tied to that twat.

Robin looked away from him as though suddenly self-conscious they had been staring at each other. “Ilsa’s turn.”

Dave and Nick laughed. Ilsa was looking at Cormoran and then Robin who was seated directly in front of her. “Back home there was this tiny little chapel on top of a hill, and we would climb up the roof for a view of the town from above,” Ilsa started. “It was a popular make-out spot. Half of Father Dowling’s time was spent shooing horny teens away from the premises.”

“Anyway, this boy asked me out and we went up there and he kissed me.” she said almost in a shrug.

“That sounds lovely.” said Robin earnestly, imagining a young Ilsa getting kissed against a sweeping Cornish view.

“Pfft.” Dave Polworth interjected. “You missed the punchline!”

“What’s the punchline?” Robin asked.

“Me.” said Cormoran, taking a swig of his beer. “I was the boy.”

Cormoran watched Robin’s face grow animated at the information, eyes widening and mouth gasping. “What!”

“Yep.”

“It was sweet, really, Oggy.” said Ilsa, calling him by his Cornish nickname now, too. “Couldn’t have wished for a better first kiss.”

Both Cormoran and Robin weren’t paying much attention to Ilsa at that moment, busy looking at each other. Robin wanted to know more (everything), and Cormoran—drunk—felt moved to open up just as much.

“You and Ilsa.” Robin said as though she still couldn’t quite believe it, elated at the information. She recalled being eleven and fancying a young Matthew Cunliffe. It amazed her just then that she, herself, ended up marrying—and divorcing—the boy he fancied at eleven while Cormoran’s became one of the best friends of his life.

“It’s true.” Cormoran replied uncharacteristically, turning back to Ilsa now. “I had returned to Cornwall after being gone for a few years, saw her and kind of just went for it.”

“Oy! That’s my wife there, mate.” Nick protested at his wife and his best friend smiling at each other. Everyone laughed.

“Then what happened?” Robin asked eagerly.

“Father Dowling!” said Ilsa. “That mean bastard caught us and told my mum and his Aunt Joan. I don’t know about Oggy, but I got a good walloping.”

“Oh. No, me too.” Cormoran assured her.

“Imagine if Dowling hadn’t caught you two. The people at this table would be very different, I reckon.” mused Dave.

“Why would it?” Ilsa asked, genuinely puzzled.

“You and Diddy might’ve dated for longer.”

“And?” Cormoran retorted. Dave shrugged.

“Who ends up with their first kiss anyway?” Nick quipped.

“Besides, I would’ve fucked it up shortly thereafter. Dowling just sped up the inevitable.” said Cormoran.

“I don’t doubt it.” Ilsa joked. “Still, Corm was quite the heartthrob growing up.” Ilsa said to Robin. “Taller than all the other boys. Quite pretty in those days. Mostly kept to himself, came and went as he pleased. We were all smitten.”

Dave was batting his eyes at Cormoran’s direction, giving him air kisses that made Cormoran and Robin laugh.

“I’ve got one,” Dave said abruptly. “Weirdest place.”

“On-call room at that hospital where Nick had his residency.” said Ilsa almost immediately.

“What about that time at the beach? I had sand up my arse for days!” Nick quipped, to everyone’s laughter.

"Finding out there was someone sleeping at the top bunk the whole time made it weird. What about you, Davey? I just know you’ve got a good one.” said Ilsa.

“I do, as it goes!” he said excitedly. “Old man Roger’s tractor.”

“What the fuck!” Cormoran exclaimed, nearly spraying his beer all over the booth. The group lost no time reminiscing—largely for Robin’s benefit—about the grumpy old farmer with his beautiful daughter that had left to join a nunnery.

“But it hadn’t been Demelza, mind,” Dave clarified, as though he didn’t want Robin nor his friends to think he had tried it on with a nun.

“I think she goes by Sister Mary Grace these days,” Ilsa corrected him.

“Right. I would never,” said Dave as solemnly as he could, as drunk as he was. “It was their next door neighbour. We had seen the tractor just sitting there and thought we’d take it out for a ride.”

Cormoran’s eyes moved to Robin rapturously taking in Dave Polworth’s ridiculous story. It didn’t slip his notice how well Robin fit in with his friends, and how Dave—once convinced that Cormoran specifically chose the worst of women—liked her from the start. _Not that we’re…_

Cormoran suddenly remembered something.

“Hold on, hold on…” Cormoran interrupted, arm waving in midair to gesture for Dave to stop. “Didn’t the Arscotts live next door to the Rogers?”

Dave gave a wicked grin, and started laughing loudly.

“You son of a bitch!” Cormoran exclaimed good-naturedly. “You also shagged Gwenifer Arscott!”

“AHA!” Dave had yelled. “I knew it!” Ilsa exclaimed, abruptly standing up with excitement, giving Dave a high-five.

“I told you, didn’t I, Ilsa? Blimey, Diddy. You kept that quiet!”

“I didn’t—“ Cormoran half-protested, knowing they had bested him, a former high-ranking SIB officer.

“Who’s Gwenifer Arscott?” Robin asked looking up at Cormoran, their faces in close proximity to each other, crammed side by side in a tiny booth. He moved his arm, placing it over the rest behind Robin to angle towards her and give her more space (Cormoran decidedly avoided catching Ilsa’s eye).

“This girl back in Cornwall—“

“Most popular girl in our grade. Prettiest, too— no offence.” said Dave, an aside to Ilsa.

“No, I agree. She was a knockout.” Ilsa nodded.

“All the lads, lined up to take her out and she would only go out with Diddy over here. Head over heels for him.” Dave told Robin.

“Locked herself in the ladies when Corm showed up at winter formal with Tamsin Chegwin.” Ilsa added. “Mr. Hammett had to break down the door and her parents had to pick her up.”

“That’s not true.” said Cormoran, amused by the conversation yet acutely aware of Robin leaning against him now, heady with drink. He could smell her lavender shampoo, his own inebriated state shattering his inhibitions. He rested his chin on top of her head.

He caught Ilsa’s eye then, who gave him a knowing smile. Cormoran rolled his eyes at her, though didn’t move to shift away from Robin. “She had a bad peanut allergy and had to rush away immediately when she saw some at the snacks table.”

“Your version makes more sense.” said Robin, still not moving from their close position. She sounded sleepy, or just very comfortable. Cormoran wondered if she found his body soft, like a giant teddy bear or a pudgy pillow and resolved to do some cardio tomorrow morning.

“What about you, Rob? Weirdest place?” Nick asked.

Cormoran felt Robin shrug against him. “Back of a car?” she said. “M’ex is really boring—“ she hiccuped (Cormoran let out a gentle laugh at that). “’s an accountant.”

Even this drunk Cormoran managed to bite back the question that came to him first, asking Robin if she meant the Land Rover. A flash of imagination came to him then, picturing Robin hunched over, straddling a person who looked closer to Cormoran than Matthew. It luxuriated around in his drunk mind, Robin’s entire body comfortable against him, the bar smelling like lavender and beer…

“Oggy?” said Nick, wrenching him out of his reverie.

Cormoran gestured at the bar to order a fresh pint to the boos of his friends. Dave lost no opportunity making a ribald joke about how ‘Milady Berserko’ was probably so twisted, the weirdest place they’ve shagged was on a proper bed.

Robin gasped suddenly and sat up.

“What?” Cormoran said, startled.

Robin stood up abruptly and wriggled her way through the cramped booth, Cormoran half-laughed, half-recoiled as her behind nearly collided with his face. Once she was through, Robin extended her hand, expecting him to take it.

He did.

“What’re we—“ he asked, but she had pulled him, already walking away and swaying to the music. It was only then that Cormoran realized Cruisin’ was on. Spanner and Shanker were sporadically singing incorrect lyrics, more concerned with swigging their beers and laughing.

Cormoran had half a mind to wonder who was supposed to be Gweneth Paltrow and who was supposed to be Huey Lewis when he was wonderfully distracted by Robin writhing in the middle of the bar, singing along far more ably to the track. _“So let the music take your mind, just release and you will find…”_

As the chorus swelled, Cormoran found himself singing along, too, as did the rest of their friends. He didn’t know how he looked, but he supposed he was swaying. He was certainly shaking his head to the beat of the song. Robin looked so beautiful as she danced openly on the makeshift dance floor she created.

_You’re gonna fly away, glad you’re goin’ my way_   
_I love it when we’re cruisin’ together_   
_Music is played for love, cruisin’ is made for love_   
_I love it when we’re cruisin’ together_

“This is my favorite part!” Spanner exclaimed, singing at Shanker. _“Baby tonight, belongs to us…”_

Robin moved closer to Cormoran, stepping in front of him and moving along with his sway. _“Everything right,”_ Shanker rasped wildly, Cormoran watched as Robin laughed, her arms landing on his chest. _“do what you must.”_

Cormoran held her hand to his chest a moment, before pulling her hand to his face, kissing her open palm. Robin wrapped her arms around his neck just then. It was like the bar had dissolved into a version of it that was a little cleaner and a lot more empty.

_And inch by inch we grow closer and closer,_   
_To every lil’ part of each other, oh baby._

She smiled up at him, face a little flushed from drinking, beautiful all the same. He lost no time wrapping his arms around her waist, pressing his forehead against hers. Robin closed her eyes and hummed to the song.

_So let the music take your mind,_   
_Just release and you will find…_

He would’ve kissed her, but thought better of it. There would be time for it all later, when they were more sober and thinking clearly. Instead, they swayed as the song faded away.

_And if you want it, you got it forever._   
_I could just stay here beside you and love you, baby…_

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the errors. I kind of just cranked this out because I loved the prompt so much.


End file.
